This invention relates to a cassette for feeding paper for further processing, and more particularly to a cassette that is adapted to feed sheets in a copying machine.
PRIOR ART
Conventional devices of this type are described with reference to FIGS. 1a, 1b, and FIG. 2. FIG. 1a is a perspective view of a conventional cassette case, and FIG. 1b is a plan view of that case. In the drawings, the numeral 1 is a cassette case, the base of which is provided with a hole 2. Two small holes 3a, 3b are mounted near the side portions of the base, as shown in FIG. 1b.
FIG. 2 shows a bottom plate 4 to be enclosed in the cassette case 1. The bottom plate 4 is provided with legs 4a, 4b. When the bottom plate 4 is put in the cassette case 1, these legs 4a and 4b are loosely fitted in the described small holes 3a, 3b, respectively.
Copy paper is placed on the bottom plate 4 enclosed in the cassette case 1. When the cassette case 1 is loaded into a copying machine, a vertical upward force is applied from a part of the copying machine through the holes 2 of the cassette case 1, which causes the bottom plate 4 to turn on the legs 4a, 4b loosely fitted in the small holes 3a, 3b so as to obliquely lift up the copy paper on the bottom plate 4. Thus, the copy paper is in position to feed out in direction of an arrow Z in FIG. 1a.
Since the conventional paper feed cassette is constructed as described above, it is disadvantageous in that one paper feed cassette can feed paper in only one direction, that is, if the direction of copy paper feeding is changed, another paper feed cassette is required, which results in the economical disadvantage that it is necessary to provide two cassettes for longitudinal feed and lateral feed. Accordingly, the present invention overcomes this disadvantage by providing a paper feed cassette which can feed paper both laterally and longitudinally.